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MSN (kr) Site Hacking |
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Software Giant Microsoft said it had cleaned the popular South Korea MSN Web site, www.msn.co.kr, and removed software code planted by hackers to steal passwords from visitors. Reports suggests the hackers could have harvested stolen passwords from visitors to the MSN site for up to three days. But since the hackers targeted subscribers of an online game called "Lineage" that is popular in Asia, the significance of the break-in was lessened. The hacker software appeared not to collect any network or banking passwords.
The Lineage game and its successor boast more than 4 million subscribers, mostly in Asia, who pay about $15 each month, said Mike Crouch, a spokesman for the US subsidiary of South Korea-based NCSoft Corp.
Security researchers at San Diego-based Websense Inc. discovered the break-in late Sunday during routine scans it makes against more than 250 million Web sites each week looking for sources of viruses and other infections.
Microsoft said another company that operates the MSN Korea site apparently failed to apply necessary software patches, leaving its server computers vulnerable.
Police investigators and Microsoft specialists are searching for clues to the folks behind the high-profile computer break-in. A Microsoft spokesman, Adam Sohn, said the company was confident its English-language Web sites were not vulnerable to the same type of attack
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